IT COULD hardly have been more British. It poured down, we carried a copy of the Daily Telegraph - the Guardian, somehow, would not have been so stiff upper lip - and the chattering classes had gathered in cheerful congregation to talk, as Dr Johnson knew that they did, about the weather.

Wades Coffee House in Darlington is so bravely British - or essentially English, perhaps - that on St George's Day it begins a series of events to mark what posh folk call the "season".

Pimms is on the menu, and Stilton and watercress soup, roast sirloin of British beef, fresh salmon, summer pudding, English cheeses.

Ray Wade, owner these past 12 years, was on holiday. The Rule Britannia theme, however, is the idea of an exuberant young man called Guy Bennett whose father was both Middlesbrough's borough librarian and Shildon FC's programme editor - the latter, of course, the higher calling.

Guy talks of other special meals to mark Ascot and Wimbledon and others on the sybaritic season ticket, but this was a wet Thursday lunchtime and with only the Daily Telegraph for company.

The room's long and narrow, church pew seating either side marked with the owner's initial - a bit like the sign of Zorro but only (you understand) a W.

The main menu's lengthy, the specials list chiefly restricted to soup, savouries and sandwiches - the Rule Britannia, the Winnie the Pooh, the Wallace and Gromit (Wensleydale cheese, of course.) There was also a tandoori something or other. Possibly it was sub-titled the Ain't Half Hot Mum.

Soup and a sandwich was £4.25. Carrot and coriander was lukewarm, that great British affliction, but there is in any case a lurking suspicion that real men, true Brits, shouldn't be eating carrot and coriander soup in the first place. Whatever happened to oxtail?

The roast beef sandwich, conversely, was the sort of glorious concoction that reinforces the belief that the best thing about Sunday isn't the hot lunch, nor a perfect Yorkshire pudding or finely turned piece of crackling, but rather the cold sandwich in front of the television that night.

It came with mustard, coleslaw and what were described as Walker's crisps. What is so particularly British about Walker's crisps isn't easy to imagine. Possibly that nice young Mr Lineker.

Guy Bennett, another nice young man, presided grandiosely throughout. The photographs which hang on the walls, he explained to a lady customer, were of celebrities who'd attended charity events there. "You're our celebrity now, dear" she replied.

Guy also recommended the rhubarb crumble, though it wasn't a patch (as it were) on the teeth tingling treats of childhood on which it seemed fancifully possible to taste whatever down-to-earth accelerant last had been visited upon it.

The custard was fine - it usually is - the sponge was OK, but what of the rhubarb, the red in tooth and claw? This appeared to have had the briefest (and most ungratifying) skirmish with a rhubarb plant instead of being flonked about the head with several sticks of the stuff.

The place is manifestly popular, nonetheless, both friends' meeting house and shelter from life's storm. The Telegraph, coincidentally, carried a story headlined "Consumers are losing faith in British food." Not in Wades Coffee House, they're not.

l The St George's Day event is on the evening of April 23 and costs £17.50, including a free half bottle of wine per person. Details on (01325) 487100 or from the restaurant in Post House Wynd.

AN e-mail from Peter Crawforth, who's a long distance coach driver, wonders why he only sees signs saying "Good food served here". Why, he asks, can't we have warnings of bad food, or indifferent food or even boil-in-the-bag food? Has anyone ever come across such honesty?

FOR Gaz and Taz the honeymoon period may now be over, it's that long since they wrote. They'd been married on December 2 last year, doubtless enjoyed the wedding breakfast and on the evening of Sunday, December 3, slipped quietly together into the Redhills Hotel, in Durham.

If, like Ms Garbo, they wanted to be alone, they'd come to the right place. No one else was in. "The waiter was most helpful," they reported and - get this bit - "the food was out of this world".

The Redhills is just off the A167 - next to Durham Johnson school - and must not be confused with the altogether grander Redhills, the Durham miners' headquarters at the other end of a very steep bank.

Runners in something akin to gym kit could occasionally be seen huffing upwards, like Jennings and Darbishire after a particularly stiff sentence from old Wilkie.

The hotel's one of the Ramside Estates family, but may be the poor relation. Several bulbs were out in the lounge, another gave up the struggle as we sat there, a bare patch on the wall indicated a light bracket that had long since dropped into parenthesis.

There was no real ale, Metro Radio in all parts and, apparently, no menu at all.

A blackboard was headed "Lunchtime specials". Timelessly, it transpired, they were also night time specials - the entire list, in truth - and just when it seemed that things could only get better, that's exactly what they did.

The barman, who was also waiter, receptionist, night porter and quite possibly the assistant general manager as well, suggested we might like to relocate to the dining room.

It's not elegant, more like an up-market boarding house, but it's clean and comfortable and like Gaz and Taz - he's Gary, presumably, but what on earth is she? - we dined alone.

Starters included a warm salad of haggis, bacon and black pudding with abundant greenery and a little too much dressing, but a very good fist, nonetheless.

The mussels having all gone at lunchtime - folk have the busiest lunchtimes - The Boss had melon terrine. Like a superior jelly, she said, and enjoyed it very much.

Main courses - rarely much more than a fiver, excellent value - included garlic-glazed hake, beef and herb lasagne, leek and mushroom bake and The Boss's filo wrapped goats' cheese parcel with red peppers - different, nicely presented, ample vegetables on the side, just £4.75.

Opposite her, five lamb chops essayed a mountain of very good mash, a rich gravy below, more veg awaiting. It was £5.50 - can't fall off, as probably they say of mash mountains everywhere.

Somewhere in the kitchen of this place lurks a talented and creative chef - an impromptu time and motion study suggested it couldn't be the amiable barman/waiter/head receptionist - who deserves a larger audience for his endeavours.

Puddings seemed mainly proprietary, tira-ma-su spelt in tripartite, rather as the Chinese revolutionaries used to essay Chiang-Kai-Shek. It wasn't proper tiramisu, but wasn't bad for all that.

If not quite love at first sight, it had been a perfectly pleasant one night stand. Our thanks to Taz and Gaz, and every blessing, too.

LAST week's piece on breakfast at Collectables, the glass and china emporium in Stockton, assumed that because the restaurant was upstairs that it was unsuitable for the disabled.

Mark Wilkinson, grateful for the compliments, points out that there are tables downstairs too. Apologies.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what happens if you eat uranium.

You get atomic ache.

Published: Tuesday, April 10, 2001